Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T21:35:54.142Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Diurnal variation of fish and macrobenthic invertebrate community structure in an isolated oceanic island of the South Atlantic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2015

Paul Edwin Brewin ,
Judith Brown  and
Paul Brickle
Paul Edwin Brewin*
Affiliation:
Shallow Marine Surveys Group, PO Box 598, Stanley, Falkland Islands FIQQ 1ZZ, South Atlantic Falkland Islands Government Department of Fisheries, PO Box 598, Stanley, Falkland Islands FIQQ 1ZZ, South Atlantic
Judith Brown
Affiliation:
Shallow Marine Surveys Group, PO Box 598, Stanley, Falkland Islands FIQQ 1ZZ, South Atlantic Ascension Island Government, Fisheries Department, Georgetown, Ascension Island ASCN 1ZZ, South Atlantic
Paul Brickle
Affiliation:
Shallow Marine Surveys Group, PO Box 598, Stanley, Falkland Islands FIQQ 1ZZ, South Atlantic South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute, PO Box 609, Stanley, Falkland Islands, FIQQ 1ZZ, South Atlantic
*
Correspondence should be addressed to:P.E. Brewin, Shallow Marine Surveys Group, PO Box 598, Stanley, Falkland Islands FIQQ 1ZZ, South Atlantic email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The trophic structure of Ascension Island's sub-tidal reef assemblages is poorly understood. Unlike other tropical reef systems, sub-tidal habitats have very low abundance of both coral and macrophyte species. Visually dominant is a diverse assemblage of fish species, with particularly high densities of Melichthys niger, a voracious omnivore. In contrast, the nocturnal species assemblage is notably different, visually dominated by benthic invertebrates. To quantify the difference between day and night visible assemblages, we conducted day/night pairs of transect surveys of fish and invertebrates across three depths, and spanning 9 months, assigning all species to one of 10 functional groups. Multivariate analysis of surveys revealed significant turnover in species between day and night surveys and between survey periods, with concomitant changes in species rank-abundance distributions. Juveniles of a number of fish species were determinate in observed differences. Conversely, diversity of functional groups between day/night surveys and between seasons were not different, however there was significant species turnover within functional groups between day and night assemblages. The lack of proportional change in functional groups but a turn-over of species between day and night assemblages suggest that there may be a degree of functional redundancy in Ascension Island's marine trophic profile. Further investigation into the spatio-temporal variation in trophic profile and functional diversity around the island will benefit conservation and fisheries management in this isolated and poorly understood marine system.

Keywords

trophictropical reefnocturnalspecies turn-overfunctional redundancy
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 96 , Issue 3 , May 2016 , pp. 737 - 747
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aguilar-Medrano, R. and Calderon-Aguilera, L.E. (2015) Redundancy and diversity of functional reef fish groups of the Mexican Eastern Pacific. Marine Ecology. doi: 10.1111/maec.12253.Google Scholar
Alldredge, A.L. and King, J.M. (1980) Effects of moonlight on the vertical migration patterns of demersal zooplankton. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 44, 133–156.Google Scholar
Annese, D.M. and Kingsford, M.J. (2005) Distribution, movements and diet of nocturnal fishes on temperate reefs. Environmental Biology of Fishes 72, 161–174.Google Scholar
Azzurro, E., Pais, A., Consoli, P. and Andaloro, F. (2007) Evaluating day-night changes in shallow Mediterranean rocky reef fish assemblages by visual census. Marine Biology 151, 2245–2253.Google Scholar
Barneche, D.R., Kulbicki, M., Floeter, S.R., Friedlander, A.M., Maina, J. and Allen, A.P. (2014) Scaling metabolism from individuals to reef-fish communities at broad spatial scales. Ecology Letters 17, 1067–1076.Google Scholar
Barnes, D.K.A. and Crook, A.C. (2001) Quantifying behavioural determinants of the coastal European sea-urchin Paracentrotus lividus. Marine Biology 138, 1205–1212.Google Scholar
Bellwood, D.R., Hoey, A.S. and Choat, H. (2003) Limited functional redundancy in high diversity systems: resilience and ecosystem function on coral reefs. Ecology Letters 6, 281–285.Google Scholar
Beukers, J.S. and Jones, G.P. (1997) Habitat complexity modifies the impact of piscivores on a coral reef fish population. Oecologia 114, 50–59.Google Scholar
Carpenter, R.C. and Edmunds, P.J. (2006) Local and regional scale recovery of Diadema promotes recruitment of scleractinian corals. Ecology Letters 9, 271–280.Google Scholar
Chambers, S.D. and Sikkel, P.C. (2002) Diel emergence patterns of ecologically important, fish-parasitic, Gnathiid isopod larvae on Caribbean coral reefs. Caribbean Journal of Science 38, 37–43.Google Scholar
Choat, J.H. and Clements, K.D. (1993) Daily feeding rates in herbivorous labroid fishes. Marine Biology 117, 205–211.Google Scholar
Clark, K.L., Ruiz, G.M. and Hines, A.H. (2003) Diel variation in predator abundance, predation risk and prey distribution in shallow-water estuarine habitats. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 287, 37–55.Google Scholar
Dill, L.M. (1987) Animal decision making and its ecological consequences, the future of aquatic ecology and behaviour. Canadian Journal of Zoology 65, 803–811.Google Scholar
Domeier, M.L. and Colin, P.L. (1997) Tropical reef fish spawning aggregations: defined and reviewed. Bulletin of Marine Science 60, 698–726.Google Scholar
Edgar, G.J., Barrett, N.S. and Stuart-Smith, R.D. (2009) Exploited reefs protected from fishing transform over decades into conservation features otherwise absent from seascapes. Ecological Applications 19, 1967–1974.Google Scholar
Ellingsen, K.E., Hewitt, J.E. and Thrush, S.F. (2007) Rare species, habitat diversity and functional redundancy in marine benthos. Journal of Sea Research 58, 291–301.Google Scholar
Floeter, S.R., Behrens, M.D., Ferreira, C.E.L., Paddack, M.J. and Horn, M.H. (2005) Geographical gradients of marine herbivorous fishes: patterns and processes. Marine Biology 147, 1435–1447.Google Scholar
Floeter, S.R., Rocha, L.A., Robertson, D.R., Joyeux, J.C., Smith-Vaniz, W.F., Wirtz, P., Edwards, A.J., Barreiros, J.P., Ferreira, C.E.L., Gasparini, J.L., Brito, A., Falcón, J.M., Bowen, B.W. and Bernardi, G. (2008) Atlantic reef fish biogeography and evolution. Journal of Biogeography 35, 22–47.Google Scholar
Gaston, K.J. and Blackburn, T.M. (2000) Pattern and process in macroecology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 377 pp.Google Scholar
Glynn, P.W., Wellington, G.M. and Birkeland, C. (1979) Coral reef growth in the Galápagos: limitation by sea urchins. Science 203, 47–49.Google Scholar
Graham, N.A.J., Evans, R.D. and Russ, G.R. (2003) The effects of marine reserve protection on the trophic relationships of reef fishes on the Great Barrier Reef. Environmental Conservation 30, 200–208.Google Scholar
Halpern, B.S. and Floeter, S.R. (2008) Functional diversity responses to changing species richness in reef fish communities. Marine Ecology Progress Series 364, 147–156.Google Scholar
Hamilton, S.L., Smith, J.E., Price, N.N. and Sandin, S.A. (2014) Quantifying patterns of fish herbivory on Palmyra Atoll (USA), an uninhabited predator-dominated central Pacific coral reef. Marine Ecology Progress Series 50, 141–155.Google Scholar
Hammond, L.S. (1982) Patterns of feeding and activity in deposit-feeding holothurians and echinoids (Echinodermata) from a shallow back-reef lagoon, Discovery Bay, Jamaica. Bulletin of Marine Science 32, 549–571.Google Scholar
Harley, C.D.G., Hughes, A.R., Hultgren, K.M., Miner, B.G., Sorte, C.J.B., Thornber, C.S., Rodriguez, L.F., Tomanek, L. and Williams, S.L. (2006) The impacts of climate change in coastal marine systems. Ecology Letters 9, 228–241.Google Scholar
Hay, M.E., Paul, V.J., Lewis, S.M., Gustafson, K., Tucker, J. and Trindell, R.N. (1988) Can tropical seaweeds reduce herbivory by growing at night? Diel patterns of growth, nitrogen content, herbivory, and chemical versus morphological defences. Oecologia 75, 233–245.Google Scholar
Heidelberg, K.B., O'Neil, K.L., Bythell, J.C. and Sebens, K.P. (2010) Vertical distribution and diel patterns of zooplankton abundance and biomass at Conch Reef, Florida Keys (USA). Journal of Plankton Research 32, 75–91.Google Scholar
Holomuzki, J.R. and Messier, S.H. (1993) Habitat selection by the stream mayfly Paraleptophlebia guttata. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 12, 126–135.Google Scholar
Hughes, T.P., Reed, D.C. and Boyle, M.-J. (1987) Herbivory on coral reefs: community structure following mass mortalities of sea urchins. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 113, 39–59.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, G.E. (1957) Concluding remarks. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 22, 415–427.Google Scholar
Kavanagh, K.D. and Olney, J.E. (2006) Ecological correlates of population density and behavior in the circumtropical black triggerfish Melichthys niger (Balistidae). Environmental Biology of Fishes 76, 387–398.Google Scholar
Legendre, P. and Legendre, L. (1998) Numerical ecology, 2nd edn. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.Google Scholar
Marnane, M.J. and Bellwood, D.R. (2002) Diet and nocturnal foraging in cardinalfishes (Apogonidae) at One Tree Reef, Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Marine Ecology Progress Series 231, 261–268.Google Scholar
Maurer, B.A. and McGill, B.J. (2011) Measurement of species diversity. In Magurran, A.E. and McGill, B.J. (eds) Biological diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 55–65.Google Scholar
McClanahan, T.R. (2000) Recovery of a coral reef keystone predator, Balistapus undulatus, in East African marine parks. Biological Conservation 94, 191–198.Google Scholar
Menge, B.A. (1992) Community regulation: under what conditions are bottom-up factors important on rocky shores? Ecology 73, 755–765.Google Scholar
Morlon, H., Kefi, S. and Martinez, N.D. (2014) Effects of trophic similarity on community composition. Ecology Letters 17, 1495–1506.Google Scholar
Mumby, P.J., Harborne, A.R., Williams, J., Kappel, C.V., Brumbaugh, D.R., Micheli, F., Holmes, K.E., Dahlgren, C.P., Paris, C.B. and Blackwell, P.G. (2007) Trophic cascade facilitates coral recruitment in a marine reserve. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104, 8362–8367.Google Scholar
Nakajima, R., Yoshida, T., Othman, B.H.R. and Toda, T. (2009) Diel variation of zooplankton in the tropical coral-reef water of Tioman Island, Malaysia. Aquatic Ecology 43, 965–975.Google Scholar
Nelson, B.V. and Vance, R.R. (1979) Diel foraging patterns of the sea urchin Centrostephanus coronatus as a predator avoiding strategy. Marine Biology 51, 251–258.Google Scholar
Ohlhorst, S.L. (1982) Diel migration patterns of demersal reef zooplankton. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 60, 1–15.Google Scholar
Paine, R.T. (1966) Food web complexity and species diversity. American Naturalist 100, 65–75.Google Scholar
Pauly, D. and Watson, R. (2005) Background and interpretation of the ‘Marine Trophic Index’ as a measure of biodiversity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 360, 415–423.Google Scholar
Phinney, J.T., Muller-Karger, F., Dustan, P. and Sobel, J. (2001) Using remote sensing to reassess the mass mortality of Diadema antillarum 1983–1984. Conservation Biology 15, 885–881.Google Scholar
Pinheiro, H.T., Ferreira, C.E.L., Joyeux, J.-C., Santos, R.G. and Horta, P.A. (2011) Reef fish structure and distribution in a south-western Atlantic Ocean tropical island. Journal of Fish Biology 79, 1984–2006.Google Scholar
Price, J.H. and John, D.M. (1980) Ascension Island, South Atlantic: a survey of inshore benthic macroorganisms, communities and interactions. Aquatic Botany 9, 251–278.Google Scholar
R Core Team (2014) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. http://www.R-project.org/.Google Scholar
Rodríguez-Barreras, R., Pérez, M.E., Mercado-Molina, A.E., Williams, S.M. and Sabat, A.M. (2014) Higher population densities of the sea urchin Diadema antillarum linked to wave sheltered areas in north Puerto Rico Archipelago. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 94, 1661–1669.Google Scholar
Sebens, K.P. and DeRiemer, K. (1977) Diel cycles of expansion and contraction in coral reef anthozoans. Marine Biology 43, 247–256.Google Scholar
Stuart-Smith, R.D., Bates, A.E., Lefcheck, J.S., Duffy, J.E., Baker, S.C., Thomson, R.J., Stuart-Smith, J.F., Hill, N.A., Kininmonth, S.J., Airoldi, L., Becerro, M.A., Campbell, S.J., Dawson, T.P., Navarrete, S.A., Soler, G.A., Strain, E.M.A., Willis, T.J. and Edgar, G.J. (2013) Integrating abundance and functional traits reveals new global hotspot of fish diversity. Nature 501, 539–542.Google Scholar
Tsiamis, K., Peters, A.F., Shewring, D.M., Asensi, A.O., Van West, P. and Küpper, F.C. (2014) Marine benthic algal flora of Ascension Island, South Atlantic. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. doi: 10.1017/S0025315414000952.Google Scholar
Tuya, F., Martin, J.A. and Luque, A. (2004) Patterns of nocturnal movement of the long-spined sea urchin Diadema antillarum (Philippi) in Gran Canaria (the Canary Islands, central East Atlantic Ocean). Helgoland Marine Research 58, 26–31.Google Scholar
Vinueza, L.R., Menge, B.A., Ruiz, D. and Palacios, D.M. (2014) Oceanographic and climatic variation drive top-down/bottom-up coupling in the Galápagos intertidal meta-ecosystem. Ecological Monographs 84, 411–434.Google Scholar
Whittaker, R.J., Rigal, F., Borges, P.A.V., Cardoso, P., Terzopoulou, S., Casanoves, F., Pla, L., Guilhaumon, F., Ladle, R.J. and Triantis, K. (2014) Functional biogeography of oceanic islands and the scaling of functional diversity in the Azores. PNAS 111, 13709–13714.Google Scholar
Wilson, S.K., Graham, N.A.J. and Polunin, N.V.C. (2007) Appraisal of visual assessments of habitat complexity and benthic composition on coral reefs. Marine Biology 151, 1069–1076.Google Scholar
Wirtz, P., Bingeman, J., Bingeman, J., Frickle, R., Hook, T.J. and Young, J. (2014) The fishes of Ascension Island, central Atlantic Ocean – new records and an annotated checklist. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. doi: 10.1017/S0025315414001301.Google Scholar
Witman, J.D. (1985) Refuges, biological disturbance, and rocky subtidal community structure in New England. Ecological Monographs 55, 421–445.Google Scholar